Alex Philip

author

Alex Philip

A pioneer of early tourism in British Columbia, he also turned the landscapes and logging camps of western Canada into fiction. His novels mix adventure with a strong sense of place, and one of them even became an early Canadian talking picture.

1 Audiobook

The Crimson West

by Alex Philip

About the author

Born in the United States in 1882, Alex Philip later settled in British Columbia in 1915. With his wife, Myrtle Philip, he opened Rainbow Lodge on Alta Lake near present-day Whistler and helped establish tourism in the region.

While working at the lodge, he wrote three novels set in the coastal and interior landscapes of British Columbia. His first novel, The Crimson West (1925), was adapted into the 1933 film The Crimson Paradise, noted as the first Canadian talkie shot entirely in Victoria, B.C.

Philip died in 1968. Remembered both as a novelist and as an early builder of Whistler's local history, he left behind stories rooted in the rugged places he knew firsthand.